January 19 is now a day of celebration. Not only is it a day that we get to have some time off from our jobs, but it is also a time to celebrate a seminal figure in U.S. history and whose legacy has shaped our world for the better. That person, of course, is Martin Luther King Jr. But amidst the praise and adulation his name invokes nowadays, I can’t help but think about how he was seen when he was alive, how he came to his death and what MLK reveals about the America that we are all a witness to now.
It is important to remember that MLK was assassinated. Even though this seems to be an obvious fact, it is one that is obfuscated by the hagiographies that everyone seems to be writing, even by places and institutions that we now know did everything in their power to discredit him and wreak havoc on his life. A Gallup poll released in 1966 revealed that 63% of Americans viewed him unfavorably and 44% thought he was highly unfavorable. MLK was a radical thinker, leader and a visionary whose vision of America was one that did not match that of the status quo, with a majority of Americans seeing him in a negative light, a light that had to be quickly snuffed out.
So what is it about MLK that lends to him being such a universally beloved figure now but was the direct opposite of that when he walked among us? It is because MLK represented the ideal that America had always theorized, but never realized. MLK represented what could have been if America had continued down the path of the Reconstruction Era and adhered to the promises made to a population of people that were kidnapped, chained and enslaved. But because of that, his very presence was an affront to the white supremacy ideals that this country was founded upon, that stole from the Indigenous people here. He held up a mirror to show a land that claimed to be one of liberty but was consistently reminded of its hypocrisy.
The shooting of Renee Nicole Good was a shock to some. Some people believed that her whiteness and her being a part of U.S. citizenry would protect her against American bred bigotry. Her death revealed a lesson that shows how violence rooted in white supremacy will eventually come for us all. There is no one that is exempt from it because it is a fire that is hell bent on consumption and destruction. Many people obviously saw that fire and did their best to confront it, tame it, and live through it. MLK saw that fire, a fire that had been raging for centuries and did everything he could to extinguish it. But there were those that thought they could control it and wield it, when instead it just burned everything in its wake.
For the most part, MLK day is a wonderful day. It is a holiday that is about one of the most exemplary people in history, a brilliant man who did so much for the world and made us better human beings. But as much as it is a day for celebration, it should also be a day of contemplation. A day to truly sit with the lessons that he tried to impart upon us. To sit with the fact that because his lessons were not properly listened to, we continue to fail and reap the consequences of that inaction. If we continue to listen to MLK only to hear about his dreams, but never confront the living nightmare, then we will continue to sleep and never wake up.
